Time Shift: Dodge & Death vs Time Bomb

[falmear]

There was a post a while back about someone asking about this. And quite frankly I didn't like some of the responses and no one had any real numbers. First off lets look at the descriptions:

Dodge & Death:

Reduces the dodge chance of your targets while they are under the influence of Time Shift. Also increases the initial damage of clock drop.

Time Bomb:

Your magical clock explodes when it expires, damaging all foes nearby.

My testing strategy involved the following:

1) Test Time shift without either of these upgrades and record the damage done on clock drop
2) Add Dodge & Death and record the damage done on clock drop
3) Add Time Bomb and test damage on clock explode

All my tests were on non-elite Krunch in Dead City. He has a lot of HP and you can reset him easy to start your tests over. Here is the damage numbers from my tests:

Uncharged Time Shift - No upgrades
1. 1049
2. 1149
3. 1097
4. 1026
5. 1005


Charged Time shift - No upgrades
1. 957
2. 1139
3. 1156
4. 1067
5. 1111

Uncharged Time shift - Dodge & Death
1. 1467
2. 1353
3. 1349
4. 1211
5. 1363

Charged Time Shift - Dodge & Death
1. 1268
2. 1418
3. 1298
4. 1212
5. 1378

Uncharged Time shift - Time Bomb
1. 840
2. 840
3. 840
4. 840
5. 840

Charged Time Shift - Time Bomb
1. 840
2. 840
3. 840
4. 840
5. 840

These tests were done without any pet and my gear is full mythic. My damage is 387.9 (full int, 5/5 int, 5/5 dex, 5/5 damage passives). So from what I see I was getting about +300 damage from Dodge & Death. Where as Time Bomb was consistently giving me 840 damage. So if you are deciding between these 2, I think you need to look how you are using Time shift. Death and Dodge may give more damage because when you drop it, as there will probably be more mobs under time shift then at the end. Also Dodge & Death works better on bosses which tend not to be stationary. If you have a lot of mobs under Time shift when time bomb goes off then you're going to do more damage this way. Or if its a boss thats mostly stationary. Also what I noticed is that if you factor crit in, you do more damage with Dodge and Death where I never got a crit damage with Time Bomb. And of course there is nothing stopping you from using both upgrades.

[v3s3l1n1l13v]

Really nice indeed. I’ve read quite some posts and all stated ‘don’t put points in dodge’ and was wondering why when it clearly states that it does additional initial damage – now that I know how much that is … it is really worth putting the point there instead of the bomb, which seems to affect only the mobs near the clock

[fumolamota]

Good thing its respec weekend :)

[Gesaffelstein]

Does anyone know how much % the Dodge & Death upgrade lowers enemies dodge?

[Taejo]

Thanks for the information, falmear!

[Drearivev]

I would take Dodge & Death over Time Bomb either way because some of our fellow Sorcerers explained that Time Bomb doesn't explode; it implodes. Also, it does damage mainly to those closest to the ring of the clock. So imo, you'd have to time it and place it perfectly, which makes it not worth it.

[FluffNStuff]

Just a quick note, Non-Elite Krunch is like level 20, so he is 15 levels below you and there is a level modifier to damage. He can be used if you are comparing different types of damage, but he will not give you an accurate estimate of what the actual damage is on same level opponents.

[will0]

this post should be a sticky post thumbs up